MyHouston, MyBrain, MyPlanet

CONCEPT: a state-of-the-art voting/polling app. The long-term intention would be to create a desirable product that can scale to all sizes of community: companies, neighborhoods, cities, regions, even the planet. In addition to facilitating secure, convenient, highly literate decision-making, this social network would aim to engage citizens in meaningful conversation around common issues. Since citizens’ accounts would include a voluntary profile detailing their ethnicity, religion, gender, age, location etc., the app could visualize how citizens of different backgrounds and geography voted on any given issue. By all citizens having access to this demographic information, populations would become more knowledgeable, interconnected, and culturally aware over time.

LOCAL EXAMPLE: a state-of-the-art voting/polling app, “MyHouston,” owned and operated by city government, would enable city administrators to submit worthy proposals directly to citizens’ smart phones where they can watch, read, and vote upon those proposals. Initially, the app would serve merely as a citizen poll prior to official voting methods. Eventually, however, this app-based approach may become secure and familiar enough to develop into citizens’ preferred portal for influencing their city.

"MyBrain"
Using text and speech recognition, MyBrain is an app that counts each word citizens are exposed to on their digital devices. Every time lifelong learners read an online article, e-book, or watch a video, they get “learning credit” as a result of the app keeping tally of how many times each word is encountered and from how many different sources. By syncing MyBrain with the voting/polling app, citizens can be ranked based on knowledge exposure relevant to “key vocabulary” listed for any given proposal.

GLOBAL EXAMPLE: a state-of-the-art voting/polling app, “MyPlanet,” owned and operated by the United Nations, would enable UN administrators to submit worthy proposals directly to global citizens’ smart phones. Proposals would regard projects requiring global cooperation such as climate change, millennium development goals, international space missions, etc. At first, the app would serve merely as a global polling method to better inform official UN decision-makers. In the long run, however, it may develop into humankind’s preferred portal for steering civilization-at-large.

OPPORTUNITY: In the Internet Age, an attractive, state-of-the-art voting/polling app is technology the human race still needs. The first city to develop a strong pilot will be highly respected. In this regard, Houston, with its great diversity and talent, is in excellent position to be a social technology leader. The first “killer” voting/polling app could start with “MyHouston” – a project initiated at the 2nd annual Houston Hackathon. Then as its software matures, cities worldwide could easily adopt their own version.